Absolute Truth and Necessary Truth

Absolute truth and necessary truth are not the same.

Let our example be the proposition p expressed by 'Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 44 B.C.' Given that p is true, it is true in all actual circumstances. That is, its truth-value does not vary from time to time, place to place, person to person, or relative to any other parameter in the actual world. P is true now, was true yesterday, and will be true tomorrow. P is true in Los Angeles, in Bangkok, and on Alpha Centauri. It is true whether Joe Blow affirms it, denies it, or has never even thought about it. And what goes for Blow goes for Jane Schmoe.

In this sense, p is absolutely or nonrelatively true. But that is not to say that p is necessarily true. A proposition q is necessarily true if and only if q is true in all possible worlds, to use a Leibnizian expression. To avoid 'world' I can say: in all possible circumstances. (A world could be thought of as a maximal circumstance.)  A proposition q is contingently true iff (i) q is true in the actual circumstances, but (ii) not true in all possible circumstances. Now our proposition p concerning Caesar is obviously only contingently true: there is no broadly logical or metaphysical necessity that he cross the Rubicon in 44 BC. He might have crossed it earlier or later, or not at all. Or said river might never have existed for him to cross.

Note that contingent is not the same as contingently true.  If a proposition is contingently true, then it is actually true.  But if a proposition is contingent it may or may not be actually true.  I was born by Caesarean section but  I might not have been.  So the proposition *BV was not born by Caesarean section* though false is contingent: it is true in some but not all possible worlds and false in the actual world.

Here are some theses I am fairly sure of:

1. There are no relative truths: every truth is absolute.
2. An absolute truth need not be a necessary truth: some absolute  truths are contingent.
3. Every truth, whether necessary or contingent, is true in all actual circumstances.
4. The ontological property of absoluteness is not to be confused with any epistemological property such as  that of being known with certainty.